Five Years
by R0S3 TYL3R
Summary: After five years, Jackie finds the Doctor and Rose on her doorstep. How would she react when she sees her dead daughter and her killer in the same area as her? AU, oneshot.


**AU in the respect that Jackie didn't go with Rose to the alternate dimension. This one is from KayleeTam, my sister account, so it might be familiar to some people.**

**Disclaimer: Fpvypt Ejp smf saa pg oyd vjstsvyrtd nrapmh yp NNV smf T. Y. Fsbod. (Doctor Who belongs to BBC.)**

She sat at the kitchen table, again. Every day, at the same time, sitting at the kitchen table. Looking at her tea as it lost its warmth.

Again she thought about all that time ago. She had seen the inside of the Doctor's ship, and he had shown her his world. And she didn't like it, not one bit. He called her fifty. He took her up into a tower to watch as the world was overrun with the most terrifying aliens. Then he came up with one of many possible strategies to save the world, the only one that could kill her daughter.

He made sure it happened.

She knew. She saw it in his eyes, his dark, empty eyes, as he looked at her daughter, gripping the handle. She saw it in his sharp teeth and his greasy hair, his clawed hands and his small feet. Never trust a man with small feet.

She watched as he greedily waited for the grip to loosen. She had no choice; she was bound to the wall. 'He feared for her safety,' they told her.

She watched as her daughter, her loving, sweet, generous, innocent daughter, gave her life to save the Earth. Which is more than she could say for this Doctor.

He had planted it. He planned it, the Cybermen and the Daleks, the void and the tower. He planned it, he made it happen, it was his fault. She knew it.

She was alone now. For a second, just for a second, she had a family; she had her daughter, and she had her husband. Then, he was gone again. Then, she was gone forever.

Moving to the suburbs didn't help. Watching the children play in the grass didn't help. The Olympics wouldn't help. Even watching as the torch ran by her brand-new window would never help; she was scarred for life. Forever alone. And it was his fault. He planned it.

She didn't care that there were kidnappings. _Good for them,_ she thought, _now they know what it's like to frown._ She didn't care if every child on the street were gone, she didn't care about the cats or the jobs or the people. She couldn't care less about her own house. She didn't even care if she lived until the next day.

She didn't hear anything. She was looking at her tea, thinking. She hardly ever listened or spoke. She should've been listening, but she wasn't. At first, she didn't hear anything. But then, that sound rung again. She wasn't listening, but she heard the faint echoes of the sound as it traveled away. She ignored it. It was her imagination. Wrong. It was her fears.

She didn't pay attention to the strangers as they walked past; strangers always walked past. She didn't pay attention to the commotion they made in the street, adults fighting. She wasn't listening. She never listened anymore.

But then, they said something. Through her dulled ears, through the double-paned window, across the street and from a hushed conversation, her mind picked up one word. Doctor.

She blinked. She saw the tea. She turned her head, her neck muscles whining from the effort. She shifted her gaze to the window. Through the window. Adults, standing in a circle. Some in construction work wear, some in normal clothing. One stood out among them all.

He was wearing a long brown coat. His black hair fluffed out of his head in odd directions. His smile was sweet and his feet were small. His hands were stuffed in his pockets.

The image rose emotion in her. Rage. He was the reason. His fake smile, the synthetic twinkle in his eye. Five years it's been now, since he destroyed her life, her daughter's life. Since he dangled her hopes and dreams in front of her and ripped them away, taking her soul with them. Since he glared at her with those black eyes and laughed as her daughter fell to her death.

She rose from the kitchen table, a hard accomplishment for her trained muscles. She made her legs move to the window. Her face didn't change; her face never changed. She didn't pay attention to it anymore. Who cared what it looked like.

She looked through the window. There he was. Standing there, in all his brilliant glory. Look, he's already replaced her daughter. Standing next to him, a new, young, hot blonde who doesn't know a knife from a screwdriver. Standing there, in her sassy clothes that probably show more than they should in the front. With her smooth, light hair.

If only she could see her face. Learn her name. Criticize her, yell at her. Or warn her. Tell her to get away from the Doctor while she could.

Then the sassy turned. Don't know why. Looked toward the hermit, probably to laugh and yell. 'Don't come out, you'd catch fire,' she'll say.

Leaning to the left, she tried to catch a glimpse of the blondie's face. To store in memory. Just a little more and she'd see it. There it-

_It was Rose._

She would've dropped her tea if it were in her hand. _Run!_ her body said. _Go to her! What are you waiting for? _Without thinking, she reached over to the front door and turned the handle.

Stop.

She had to control herself. This wasn't Rose. It couldn't be. Rose was dead. Dead at the hands of a-

-of a Time Lord.

A _Time_ Lord.

A traveller through time.

She'd gone with him, away to who knows where and who knows when. She'd run away with him, gotten into love. Is this where she'd gone? To the future? To the 2012 Olympics?

Why not?

She was shaking, her hand on the door handle. Her mouth was dry. She looked up again, and there it was. Her daughter's face. Dead five years and here it was, the face, alive again, smiling. Looking at the Doctor. The Doctor looked back.

The menace. The lying, scheming, heartless menace. He roped her daughter into this game of love. It was his fault. If it hadn't been for him and his changing face, his quick thinking and his rotten luck, nobody would be dead.

What could she do? Nothing? Just stand there and watch her daughter talk with this creature of hate? She had to do _something._

Rose motioned to the house. The Doctor looked.

She was rooted to the spot. Through the double-paned window, across the street and between the arguing parents, the Doctor looked at her.

He looked at her eyes. He looked into her soul.

She gasped. She could feel him inside, reading. Unjust. It should be against the law, going into someone else's mind. Poking and prodding. Looking at anything he wished. She had no secrets. She couldn't look away.

Then, she was pulled. Through the double-paned window, across the street and between the arguing parents, she was pulled into the Doctor. She felt her mind connect with his on a stronger level. There was no door. They shared thoughts, secrets, memories and hopes. She braced herself for a blizzard, a storm of raging ice.

The first thing she felt, the first thing she noticed, the first thing on his mind, all the time. His life was filled with it, his soul was made of it. Sorrow. She felt, she _knew,_ everybody he'd ever left behind. She saw his memories, she knew them, she had them. Time after time. Sarah, Jamie, _Adric._ Everyone got left behind, and he was sorry.

_I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry._

Layers and layers of it. Regret and remorse, deeper and deeper and deeper. She looked, she dug, and she found only traces of the anger that should be there, but only at himself. Enemies and allies, deaths and lives, and all through it, sorrow.

Then she got to the end. The deepest part of the Doctor, where everything was dark and compressed, where the last bits of anger and remorse smashed in with one another, where he kept his biggest secrets. There she found Rose.

A light in the darkness. A strand of hope. A thin, short strand. It was wrapped in layers of _I'm sorry_ and _I'm going to have to leave you one day._ It glowed. She dug down to it. She felt him wince; he doesn't go that deep into himself. She pulled him down. She made him face it. She wanted to know.

She dug through the closely wrapped layers and found the surface of the strand. All around it, a strong armor. _I will save you_, it glowed. She sunk into it to find the next layer. Hope, it said. She went deeper. Friendship. This one was the thickest. She went lower. The lowest there was. She dragged the Doctor down, farther and farther, into his deepest point, the very end, the most buried of emotions. There she found it. It was little, but it was strong.

Love.

It gleamed. It was stronger than anything else she'd seen in him. It glowed with the strength of the Universe. The Doctor tried to pull away from it. It hurt him to be here, to see his undying love for someone who is, eventually, going to die.

He _didn't_ kill her daughter. He couldn't have. It wasn't possible; he was so sorry, he was so in love. She had gotten it wrong. His eyes weren't black. His teeth weren't sharp and his hands weren't clawed. He hadn't been laughing or intentionally holding back as her daughter fell into the Void. He had been sorry on a level she wasn't even capable of. He cried. His life had been shattered. It didn't give him pleasure; it gave him stillness. Not thinking, not working. He died on that day, with her daughter.

She blinked. She saw, through the double-paned window, across the street and between arguing parents, the Doctor. His eyes reflected a million different feelings before he looked away. She'd shown him his heart. Your own heart is the hardest thing to face.

He looked at Rose, wearing a mask. He would always be wearing a mask; now she knew. Now she understood. Now she can live out her life.


End file.
